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The Happiness Forecast
Description
Getting the Forecast Right Can Bring More Sunshine into Your Child’s Life
How can parents help manage the fear and uncertainty that comes with a new school year, new environments and new friendships?
Superintendent Anthony Godfrey sits down with JSD Health and Wellness Specialist McKinley Withers to talk about managing change in your child’s life and offers some ways to help overcome the social health crisis we are seeing in students today.
Audio Transcription
Superintendent Godfrey:
Welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. This is a Jordan School District podcast designed to educate, inform, and hopefully entertain you. If it's important to students, parents, teachers, or anything that has to do with education, it's something we want to cover on the podcast. I'd like to start this Supercast by visiting with a few students. I had a few questions for students in sixth grade at Terra Linda Elementary. So Sammy, tell me, what do you like about school?
Student:
Well, I like making friends because this is my first year at this school, actually.
Superintendent Godfrey:
So is this a friendly school?
Student:
Yes, it's very friendly. I love all the staff and my friends here.
Superintendent Godfrey:
So, do you know what you want to be when you grow up?
Student:
It would be an oceanographer or I want to be a veterinarian or I want to be a photographer.
Superintendent Godfrey:
Oh, so you've got it down to three choices.
Student:
Yeah, I think you're going to have to choose one. I'm not sure how well those would all overlap. What do you like about sixth grade Gracie?
Student:
How the bathrooms aren't as dirty.
Superintendent Godfrey:
Dirty bathrooms are not old cool. I can't argue with you there. We always appreciate the chance to talk with students and it was great to visit Terra Linda and seeing kids at the start of school. They're just getting going. Things are going their way so far.
And today we get the chance to talk with our Consultant in Health and Wellness, McKinley Withers. He's going to talk with us about keeping that positive momentum that you heard in the voices of the children. I had the chance to talk with and to manage the transitions, stress and workload that, quite frankly, can come along with being a student. We've had a particular focus in the last year in particular on the health and wellness of students and faculty and the social and emotional wellness, just in general, of everyone in the District, particularly students. And we just want to talk about ways that students can effectively manage that. So McKinley, tell us a little bit about yourself.
McKinley:
I've been a teacher and a counselor, and I love working in education. I currently, like you said, work as a Health and Wellness Specialist. I also am a father of two young children who will shortly be attending Jordan School District schools and so I look at this from multiple angles.
Superintendent Godfrey:
Great. Happy you are here. Tell us a little bit about how we can improve overall health and wellness. That's been a real focus in the District and just in general social and emotional health and wellness, making sure that we're focused on happiness and just kids are doing well, because you can't learn if you're feeling stressed out and you're feeling a high level of anxiety. How do we manage that?
McKinley:
So, I always like to start any discussion on happiness or wellness with probably what I see as the most fundamental mindset shift, which is focusing primarily on what you have control over. That is your thoughts and your actions, what you do daily, what you choose to do does matter for your wellness. It matters for your longevity. It matters for your happiness. We ofte